I’ve always been compelled to walk into my Fears. Question its existence, meaning, emotional weight, legitimacy… It hasn’t been easy.
Whatever it was, from speaking in public, performing, expressing my thoughts, sports, leadership positions, speaking up, putting myself out there, thinking of doing something of significance, being different, putting myself through processes of being judged and potentially rejected.
My biggest questions were, Why am I afraid of this? What is the fear? I was ultimately questioning its validity and its power to limit my decisions, ability and potential.
In any of those situations my fears probably sounded something like, fear of being embarrassed, fear of losing, fear of failure, fear of being ridiculed, fear of not being liked, fear of disappointment, fear of… etc. But I think in the end, those fears are essentially the fear of being Judged, Rejected and Separated.
As I took on this journey of walking into my fears. It hasn’t been easy, in fact it’s been very difficult. It’s stressful, forcing yourself to do things you don’t naturally want to do, actually things you don’t want to do. It’s uncomfortable, trying to do something while dealing with the fear feels almost impossible. It’s resistant, every inch of your body, mind and soul resists and tells you not to do it. It’s defensive, when you’re “bad” at whatever you’re trying to do, you feel defensive and insecure, having to explain and justify yourself. It’s vulnerable, being afraid, insecure puts you in a very vulnerable place. It’s humbling, whatever you thought about yourself, whatever you thought was right, will be challenged, questioned and maybe make you rethink who you thought you were. Which for me has been in a good way.
But that’s the scariest part, maybe you were wrong, maybe what you thought needed some more work, what you’ve been doing for years, how you’ve been raised, learned to live, choices you’ve made, would mean you’d been wrong this whole time?! The thought processes, decisions, actions, relationships, all of it… That is way too difficult to process, almost impossible to accept, too scary to even acknowledge the possibility.
But it’s a process – it’s a journey. It’s not about being right or wrong, good or bad. Accepting newfound awareness in exchange for older thinking, the point isn’t admitting you were wrong, forsaking and regretting everything you’ve ever done. The old thinking is what worked for you at the time, with the knowledge, experience and awareness you had.
Stepping toward the fear is a discovery – rewarding and enlightening. Learning the things that being fearful teaches you. And you realize the fears are not real, of course there are real and valid fears of safety and physicality, but a lot of the fears I’m referring to are just stories like the boogie man.
You meet the invisible person hiding behind the fears. Maybe that invisible man is the boogie man, but then you realize that boogie man is just a scared person with a mask, child-like. And you realize we are all similar in that way, sharing the same fears, connected by that inner-child, and we are more alike than we can ever know hiding behind what we’re all afraid of.